Chapter 11
NO SUDDEN MOVEMENTS (EDEN)
This is fine. Everything is fine.
But, not really. The second Nate shrugs out of his T-shirt, I know I’m in trouble.
“Bit warm in here, isn’t it?” he says casually, folding the shirt and tossing it onto the chair. “Don’t want to sweat through the table.”
Oh, okay. That’s considerate.
Except it’s not. Because his chest is broad and cut, abs forming a perfect ladder that disappears into low-slung shorts. His shoulders stretch wide and powerful, arms corded with muscle and veins that map out very poor decisions.
This is so much worse than I could have ever imagined. My mouth opens before my dignity can stop it.
“Oh. You’re…so much bigger.”
His head snaps up, and he smirks as if I just poured him top-shelf whiskey and promised a lap dance.
“Well damn. You sure know how to boost a man’s ego.”
Fire floods my face. “I meant—uh—broader. Taller.” Stop talking, Eden. “You’ve filled out.”
“Filled out,” he echoes, trying not to laugh. He leans back on his hands, chest flexing, lazy and absolutely intentional. Watching me watch him. “You mean devastatingly handsome and unfairly jacked?”
The words land hard. He’s testing what I’ll do with them. My stomach tightens, equal parts want and warning.
“I mean—” I mutter, frazzled, eyes locked on the neutral safety zone of his kneecaps. “Cut it out. This is a clinical setting.”
A quarter appears out of nowhere and walks across his knuckles. It’s easy, practiced from ferry-dock summers. My gaze tracks the glide before I catch myself.
“No coin tricks during treatment,” I try weakly.
“This one’s to help with breathing.” He pauses, then gently takes my wrist, turning it over. He sets the coin on my pulse, his eyes locked on mine, while I helplessly fixate on the touch of his hand. The metal is cool, his fingers steady. “You’re racing.”
“My breathing’s just fine, Russo.” I pluck the coin and set it on the table next to him. “Clinical. Setting.” My voice is steady. Barely.
He lifts his hands, palms up. “Hands to myself. Scout’s honor.” His tone drops half an octave. “You’re blushing. Is it me?”
Heat climbs my neck, prickling my skin. He tips his chin toward me. “I don’t mind you looking. I want your eyes on me.”
Tingles skitter down my spine, summers snapping into place.
Back then, it was easy. Now his proximity hits a spot I didn’t know was unguarded, tugging me toward a line I’m not ready to cross.
Hip alignment, muscle engagement—the work I’m paid to care about—sure.
But the way he watches me turns every adjustment into a dare, the air between us tightening.
I’m fighting to keep my focus clinical when his bicep catches my eye. A thin braided band, etched in sharp black lines, wraps around the inside of his left arm. On his darker skin, the lines look softer than they probably did when the ink was fresh, muted the way older tattoos get.
It’s simple. Familiar.
“That’s…new,” I croak. “What is it?”
He glances down, almost as if he forgot it was there. “Friendship bracelet.”
“Seriously?”
A faint shrug. “You used to make them on Fire Island. Remember?”
Purple and black. His favorite colors. I’d spent hours on that one, fingers aching from pulling the knots tight, obsessing over making it perfect. I wanted him to keep it forever. I never imagined he actually would.
Before I can stop myself, my fingertips graze the ink, tracing the curve of the band.
A light, automatic touch—intimate, nothing I can pass off as clinical.
His arm locks beneath my hand, muscle flaring tight, his whole body stilled in an instant.
The silence between us goes taut, ready to snap, a live wire we’ve both been pretending isn’t there.
“You…wore it?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
His gaze lingers on my hand until I remember to pull it back. “I did,” he says quietly. “For a while. Till it frayed and fell apart.”
My breath catches, lodged in the space between my lungs and my throat.
“Got this done a couple years ago,” he adds, voice lower now, rougher. “The only way I could keep it.” A beat, then his eyes lift to mine. “Since my best friend wasn’t around to make me another one.”
The weight in my chest is sharp and relentless. The thought that he carried it with him, that he loved it enough to make it permanent…
I should toss a joke, maybe ask why a six-foot-four goalie got inked with a design better suited to summer camp. But the words jam behind my teeth, and the silence between us turns too personal.
I reach for the lotion, letting the cool bottle anchor me. “Let’s do some manual work,” I try to deflect, keeping my tone even as I step closer. “Lie back. Left knee bent.”
His brow lifts—a flicker. He knows I’m changing the subject, but he obeys, settling back on the table in a slow sprawl that makes it very hard to pretend he has no effect on me.
Get it together, woman.
I’ve treated Olympians, MMA fighters, and one guy who swore he was dating a Kardashian. None of them made me nervous. None of them made my skin hum this way.
But Nate Russo is a problem. Especially right now, stretched out on my table, a bad idea I can’t decide if I want to avoid or dive into.
His gaze is fixed on the ceiling, jaw loose, breathing steady.
Meanwhile, my system is in full revolt: palms damp, fire simmering low, every shift of his hips sending sparks skittering all over my system. I’ve never felt this throbbing ache before. It’s unsettling and magnetic in equal measure. And I want more of it.
Keep it clinical. Keep it clinical.
I anchor my palm on the solid warmth of his thigh, right above the knee, fingers curving into muscle that flexes under my touch. “Tell me when you feel something.”
His tone drops, almost a snarl. “Define something.”
“Pulling. Tension.”
“Oh.” His stare cuts to mine, razor sharp. “Then I should’ve called it the second you walked in.”
It’s a direct hit. My stomach flips hard, heat licking low, my thoughts scattering like loose change. “Focus, Russo,” I manage, even though I’m the one who can’t.
His lips curve into a smile, the kind that should come with a warning. “Trying to. Hard when your hand’s on my inner thigh, Trouble.”
The nickname slams into me. Trouble was what he called me when I was brave enough to trust him with my fears, young enough to believe he’d always catch me when I fell. Now it’s older, rougher, threaded with promise and danger in equal measure.
The air tenses between us. We’re both flipping through the same reel of memories. Every time he made me feel safe. And all the times I wished it had been more.
“Does this feel okay?” My words are steadier than I expect, even as that old, dangerous gravity tugs at me.
“Peachy.” He tilts his head, expression glinting. “This where things get…hands-on?”
I glance up sharply, a flare of confusion and defense tangling in my chest. “They’ve been hands-on.”
“Not like that,” he murmurs, gaze locking with mine. The low rumble slides under my skin, warm and electric, until I can’t tell if my pulse is in my chest or my throat. Every part of me is too aware—how close I am, how his thigh shifts under my hand, how the air feels thick enough to drink.
My pulse trips over itself. I should break eye contact. I can’t.
Oh my God. I’m going to combust.
I retreat under the guise of switching to glute activation drills, anything to escape the pressure radiating off him. But my skin tingles, every nerve ending tuned to him, and that one word, Trouble, echoing in my chest.
“Roll onto your side,” I say, way too tightly. “We’re doing clamshells next.”
He obeys, grinning now. He knows he’s in control of this session, not me.
And then it happens. I’m behind him, guiding his hips forward for proper alignment. My fingers move below the waistband of his shorts to anchor the top of his pelvis.
His body responds.
Firm. Obvious. Immediate.
I freeze, pulse spiking.
He doesn’t shift away or mumble an apology but lets the silence thicken until my breathing feels too loud. Then, low and rough, “Careful, Trouble. You keep touching me that way, and we’re gonna have a different kind of session.”
The fire that blazes through me is so sharp it almost knocks me off my feet. My brain is scrambling for neutral ground and finding none.
“Most of my patients wait until week three for that milestone,” I try for levity.
A slow grin curves his mouth, dark with challenge. “Guess I’m an overachiever.”
Part of me wants to step away, reestablish the safe, clinical space between us. The other part—the one I didn’t even know existed—wants to find out what happens if I don’t.
We keep moving, but every brush of my hand is a fuse sparking to life, every inhale tightening the air between us.
And the worst part? I don’t want it to stop. Not because I’m ready to cross that line—God, I shouldn’t be—but because I’ve never felt this before. Never had safety and desire coil together in the same breath, tangling so tightly, I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
When we finish, I step away, pretending my heart isn’t galloping in my chest.
Nate props himself on his elbows, sweat at his temple, focus sharp.
“Same time Thursday?”
“Unless you spontaneously heal,” I say, aiming for unbothered.
He nods, pushing up. But before he heads out, he pauses at the door. Glances over his shoulder.
“You ever think we were unfinished?”
I stop breathing.
The question hangs in the air. It’s a challenge, and I realize he’s asking about more than our friendship. He’s asking about the girl who used to trust him with everything, and the woman who’s been running from that trust ever since.
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He walks out and leaves me staring after him, pulse racing, knees weak, and heart breaking open all over again.